Tee in Mongolia

Sir, It was nostalgic for me to read of an American hitting a golf ball across Mongolia (report, 26 July). He is not the first, though the parameters of the “Royal and Imperial Ulan Bator Golf Club” were not quite so vast. Each year during my time in Mongolia the golfers of the British and Japanese Embassies would create, for one day only, a nine-hole course on the outskirts of Ulan Bator and compete for the handsome R&I UBGC trophy, presented by a previous Japanese Ambassador.

In the still somewhat tense and restricted era of the Cold War, I recall we felt some trepidation as we set out the course and stuck in our white flags under the watchful and no doubt curious scrutiny of a hovering Soviet helicopter. Luckily the pilot never landed to ask us what we were up to; I very much doubt if he would have believed our explanation.